Fugro Wins Innovate UK Funding to Support Rail Industry Innovation

Fugro has won innovation funding from Innovate UK’s ‘First of a Kind’ competition to optimize rail maintenance.

The theme of Innovate UK's (FOAK2020) competition was optimized and cost-effective rail maintenance. The FOAK2020 award will fund the development of Fugro’s Innotamp project for a period of 9 months in collaboration with Network Rail. A world first for track maintenance, the funded project will demonstrate how track alignments, generated using geodata from Fugro’s Raildata solution, can be directly uploaded to a tamper’s computer to optimize tamping of railway lines.

The FOAK2020 innovation programme, funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and managed by Innovate UK, aims to demonstrate how proven technologies can be integrated into a railway environment for the first time (‘first of a kind’ demonstrations). It encourages innovation in the rail industry, using novel technologies such as RILA and new ways of applying data.

RILA technology

The Innotamp project utilizes Fugro’s RILA technology, which makes use of in-service passenger trains to survey the network at line speed and generate high-accuracy geodetic track data, to streamline tamping operations. The immediate benefit is improved productivity and, over time, it will lead to lower annual maintenance costs, improved passenger comfort, and less disruption to rail services.

Robert Hoddenbach, Fugro’s global director for Land Asset Integrity, said: “We are very excited to be working on the FOAK2020 programme, which aligns with our vision to combine innovative digital technologies into integrated solutions for our clients. This funding is significant and will fast-track development and integration of the Innotamp project so we can provide fast, high-quality and regular survey data for predictive track maintenance.”